The Doula Business Guide: Creating a Successful Motherbaby Business 2nd Edition

The book shows you how to:

• Determine which business model is right for you. 
• Avoid ruined friendships with our frank discussion on the pros and cons of business partnerships.
• Identify seven critical decisions every new business owner must make.
• Command respect from the medical community.
• Build a professional image by establishing and maintaining professional boundaries with clients.
• Achieve success through implementation of low-cost e-marketing strategies.
• Set your fees, communicate with clients about money, avoid conflicts, and get paid without hassles or guilt.
• Stay out of trouble with the IRS while taking every rightful deduction you can and lowering your overall tax liability.
• Determine whether a nonprofit business model is right for you.
• Avoid common mistakes in establishing a doula program.
• Win grants up to $200,000 and more to fund your doula program.
• Protect yourself from liabilities unique to doulas.
• And lots more (seriously!)

The Doula Business Guide 2nd Edition is the must-have, comprehensive resource for anyone seeking to establish an independent doula business or program. Over 300 pages of inspiration and useful information for launching your dream career and making it pay well. From start-up decisions and staying out of trouble with the IRS, through marketing, boundaries, grant writing and risk management strategies, this guide covers everything the doula entrepreneur and birth visionary needs to know.

AMAZING! I'M THRILLED! What a fantastic book! I can't put it down. I keep going from heading to heading, wondering "What does she say about this?" You've done an impressive job and I am happy it is so comprehensive!! Not only do independent doulas need this information ... it also has a lot to offer non-doulas who are on the board of directors of doula organizations. Amy L. Gilliland, Ph.D., CD(DONA), DONA Approved Doula Trainer and Doula Researcher

This book is a very good read! Patty's honesty, conversational tone, instructive stories and obvious expertise carry you through each chapter. She shares pearls of wisdom gleaned from years of experience with many types of doula practice. An appropriate subtitle for the book might be "Everything You Wanted to Know about Doula Business, but Were Too Naïve to Ask." This book is more than an excellent guide to business, but also a guide to the high road for each of us and to positive growth for the entire doula movement. -- Penny Simkin, author and co-founder of DONA International.

Table of ContentsChapter 1. Choosing the Path

• Consider ...
• Going It Alone--Sole Proprietors
• Teaming Up--Partnerships (Think Twice!)
• Should You Incorporate Your Business?
• Collaborative Models
• Evolution of Center for the Childbearing Year

• Mission/Values/Vision
• Naming Your Business
• Considerations Regarding Office Space
• Defining Your Service Package
• Money Matters!
• Third-Party Reimbursement for Doula Services
• Staying Out of Trouble with the IRS
• Getting the Paperwork Together
• A Word about "The Stuff"
• Commanding Respect

• The Big Picture--Marketing Overview
• Cultivating Referrals, Repeat Business, Word of Mouth
• Print Media
• Online Media
• Radio and Television
• Establishing a Community Presence
• Evaluation of Marketing Efforts

• What is a Nonprofit Corporation?
• Pros and Cons of Nonprofits
• Step-by-Step Set-Up
• About "the Board"
• Cloning the Executive Director
• Fundraising--The Bottom Line
• Story of Center for the Childbearing Year
• The "Essentially Flawed Concept"
• Reality Check
• The Story Continues ...

• Doulas Care
• Michigan Doula Connection
• The HealthConnect One Model
• Community-Based Program Models Summary
• Hospital-Based Doula Programs

• Identify Funders with a Mission Match
• Cultivating the Grantor-Grantee Relationship
• Components of a Proposal
• Proposal Writing Tips
• Specific Doula Program Funding Strategies
• Heads Up on Fiduciary Relationships
• Sample Funded Proposal: Ann Arbor Thrift Shop
• Sample Funded Proposal: Ann Arbor Community Foundation
• What If Your Proposal Doesn't Get Funded?
• Honing Your Grant Writing Skills

• Scope of Practice
• How to Make an Effective Referral
• Creating Effective Client Contracts
• Small Claims Court and the Doula
• Risk Reduction Strategies for Doula Programs
• Poor Birth Outcomes and the Doula
• HIPAA Laws and Doulas
• Child Abuse and Neglect and the Doula--Are Doulas Mandated Reporters?
• Domestic Violence Awareness
• Boundaries, Personal Safety, and Self Defense for Doulas
• LLC Formation
• Transfer of Risk: Insurance Considerations

• The Art of Being "On Call"
• Boundary Setting Revisited
• Nurturing Yourself as Well as You Nurture Others
• I Don't Have Time to Read a Book on Time Management
• Doula Power!

What childbirth leaders are saying about The Doula Business Guide:
 
"Many of us believe that the over-medicalized American way of birth must change, but no one has done what Patty Brennan does here. Combining smart business sense with the wisdom of grassroots organizing, Brennan provides a complete nuts and bolts guide to creating and sustaining a business that helps moms get the safe and satisfying birth they want." --Raymond De Vries, Ph.D., Bioethics Program, University of Michigan School of Medicine

 
"Patty Brennan provides a step-by-step guide for building a sustainable doula business as well as a bounty of inspiration for staying the course. The Doula Business Guide is a recipe for success as a birth worker and an entrepreneur." --Geradine Simkins CNM, MSN, Executive Director, Midwives Alliance of North America

 
"Patty Brennan's vast experience of directing a nonprofit center, writing grants, collaborating with community agencies, managing for-profit programs, and operating an independent doula practice offers a broad and practical perspective. For any model of making doula services available that Brennan hasn't directly done, she has done a thorough job of researching. Whether you are new to the field or an experienced doula interested in broadening your business focus, I highly recommend this book." --Teri Shilling, MS, CD(DONA), IBCLC, LCCE, Owner of Passion for Birth

 
"Patty Brennan's business acumen and expertise really show in this thorough, well-written, and researched business book for doulas and others with birth-related practices, including midwives. Marketing is key to your business and is very well covered here. This should be the first book you get when you decide to be any kind of birth practitioner. We can only change birth practices for the better if we are successful at reaching our audience." --Jan Tritten, Midwife & Owner of Midwifery Today

Patty Brennan, Director/Owner of Center for the Childbearing Year, has been an advocate for childbearing families for over 32 years as a childbirth educator, doula, midwife and program visionary. In 1999, she founded Doulas Care, a community-based volunteer doula program and served as its executive director through 2007. She is the founder and executive director of Michigan Doula Connection, a nonprofit charitable organization that promotes access to doulas for all families in Michigan, regardless of ability to pay. Patty is an approved birth and postpartum doula trainer through DONA International. She teaches a Small Business Development class at Washtenaw Community College and has been self-employed her entire adult life.